Is Mujuru really changed

Dear Editor,

There was obvious excitement among the group that gathered to witness the official launch of the Zimbabwe People First party. It is health for Zimbabwean politics as any party that has the potential to reduce Zanu PF’s support base is a step in the right direction. Better still, any party with people with some internal working knowledge of Zanu PF’s violence machinery are welcome, especially those that have been involved in it as they may know of some counter strategies to employ.

But Zimbabweans must not just rush to embrace the new party without questioning why the same people have been silent over atrocities perpetrated on innocent civilians who simply wanted to exercise their democratic right and belonged to parties opposed to Zanu PF. Since the shooting of the now late Patrick Kombayi, Amai Mujuru was part of that system which she now describes as unjust. Through to the emergence of the MDC in 1999, Amai Mujuru was part of this system.

What is the purpose of  Vice-Presidents and ministers of a country, if I may ask? Does she not have the responsibility to go on meet the people tours across the country to see how people are living, what problems they have. Amai Mujuru was a cabinet minister and the Vice-President of Zimbabwe for many years, but today she confirms she has for the first time seen, through her meet the people programme, horrible things “people with scars, no medical attention given to them because of political violence”. When the MDC spoke so strongly about political violence, why did she not visit the affected areas to see for herself what she now saw after her expulsion from Zanu PF?

Amai Mujuru is now going to the same people who were brutalised by the same Government she belonged to  and pretending to sympathise with them to win their hearts, promising them medical treatment and all those things that they have needed all these years while she was in Government.

This Dr. Mujuru who now admits there is a selective application of the law, one for the poor and powerless, one for opposition supporters and one for the ruling party supporters is the very person who tormented Strive Masiiwa when he wanted to set up his mobile business. She now talks about corruption in the Government, yet she exaggerated her disability claims and obtained thousands and thousands of dollars as compensation for injuries sustained during the war of liberation.

Zimbabweans must not trust people like Dr. Mujuru to preside over the affairs of the country. I agree completely that she was tormented in Zanu PF in her last days in that party, but that doesn’t make her cleaner that those that she has worked with in the system for 34 years.

Welcome to the world of opposition politics Dr. Mujuru, but you must introspect and give yourself enough time to prove you have now changed your ways and are now genuinely for the people, who you helped oppress over the years. Zimbabweans are forgiving if you give them time to think and reflect, not just rush into wanting to be their next president after years of being part of a system that oppressed them.